Vatican museums hit new record in 2011: more than 5 million visitors

The Vatican Museums broke their own record for visitor numbers to any site in Italy in 2011, attracting more than five million people for the first time, Director Antonio Paolucci said Tuesday. “By December 31, at midnight, 5,078,004 people had entered the pope's museums,” Paolucci told Vatican daily l'Osservatore Romano.

Paolucci said the figure was “particularly impressive” given that the second-biggest tourist lure in Italy, Florence's Uffizi Gallery, only managed to attract one and a half million people last year”.

via ANSA

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.